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10 November 2015

Human Rights

In this story that reads more like a philosophical debate than anything else, an artificial intelligence argues with his creator over the rights of artificial intelligences. Presumably if it possesses the capacity to argue, then it must have near human faculties. However, the premise of its argument is that immortality confers extended rights. When humans die, the wrong done them dies as well. Dissimilarly, the abuse endured by an immortal mind may well have repercussions across the ages.

I doubt the argument is sound, and I doubt a machine will be making it (or any other self-aware argument) any time soon. However, the question stands: How might human rights differ for the immortal? Or, to be more specific, how can an atheist, who sees all human life as fleeting, come to agreement on the matter of human rights with a person whose faith leads them to treat the soul as immortal?